Ray was in a forest, tranquil and clean were it not for the sounds of battle and screams of the slain. Bodies littered the field, painting the green grass in the various colors of body fluids but most noticeably, on the ground in front of him. Ray saw himself, chest smashed in by a hard impact and his face filled with small spikes of metal and wood. "I'm...dead."

...

"It's time to wake up Ray. It is not your time." 

A sweet, gentle, female voice, coaxing Ray from his nightmarish slumber as he looked up and saw the bright blue sky overhead, along with the fumes from the doused campfire. "Morning Ray, how're you doing?" A man in his mid-30's with a short beard, pieces of bark covering his body overlooked Ray. "Morning Gurt, where's the others?" 

Looking around, the campsite was completely empty except for the two of them along with the supplies that Cael gave them. It honestly wasn't much, just food and water along with some poor quality swords. Since it was a fast draft it would be expected that there would not be a lot of supplies but how were they to fight with these weapons. 

"Commander Roland said they were going to scout out the place, we probably aren't going to win a head-on fight so we're going to use the forest to our advantage." It made sense, against the beastmen we probably didn't want to go against their brute strength head-to-head especially with these...weapons. "He ordered us to take care of the supplies in the meantime. So...wide awake yet!?" 

"I'm awake...but what's with the tree bark all over your body?" On Gurt's hide clothes there were large pieces of tree bark attached by leather straps, it looked very uncomfortable. "Ah these? It's my makeshift armor, since we weren't exactly given any armor to work with. I decided to make my own, how is it?" Gurt is a nice fellow, though he certainly lacked something in the brain department.

"Say Ray, have you been in battles before? What're they like?" Ray looked at him, Gurt was even younger than him at 14, barely even a man. His face was pale and his body was trembling slightly, his nervousness easily seen. "I have, but only against fellow humans. They were...unpleasant to say the least."

There was a brief silence between the two of them, their heads facing the ground. "Will we survive Ray...I don't want to die...I have a family, friends and..guh." The boy was tearing up now, Ray felt it was better if he left him alone to work it out by himself. After all, his words struck home with Ray. Death was not an option. 

A short while later, Gurt had calmed down and the two of them silently walked around the campsite when Roland and the rest of the group returned. "Ahoy lads! We're back and guess what, we found us a nice little pick me up!" Behind Roland two soldiers were holding a live deer, hung by it's legs and bound with rope to a large wooden stick.

The supplies given were mostly grain and fruits so a little meat definitely helped us forget about the grim nature of our mission and the probable death we faced. Sitting around the campfire, we ate and chatted about life back back, many of the men had families back home and also had joined the wars of human unification albeit earlier and some were even part of the surrendered soldiers.

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Then someone spoke out a most intriguing question. "Commander Roland, what makes you so special that the count's High Guard son personally asked you to lead this mission." With a sharp glare, Roland looked at the man who asked with a sharp movement causing everyone to flinch a little but his glare was quickly followed with a sigh as he took another bite of the venison. 

It was unlike Roland to act like that, what happened to make him detest the thought of talking about his past. "I'm sorry, you all deserve to know but please give me some more time to prepare myself." With that, the men silently ate and as night came so did sleep all except for Ray who offered to take the first watch.

In the quiet stillness of the night, only the sound of the fire kept Ray company as he dreaded to fall back to sleep. What nightmares would come to him this night, will another loved one die or will he be witness to more gruesome acts. The demon's curse would drive him insane, he could feel it. All he could do was do what he was told and pray for a miracle.

"The boy is alone."

"All alone in the dark."

"Pity pity pity..."

Whispers deep within the forest, growing increasing louder shocked Ray and he turned around to look but saw nothing. Yet the whispers continued, growing louder as time went on, soon there was a large group of twenty surrounding him.

"A hatchling, new to the way of the world."

"I remember when I was his age."

"Hah, he thinks he's fought in 'wars'!"

As Ray's watch continued, the whispers became more like a conversation as the shadows began talking to one another. They even attempted to coax Ray to speak but he chose not to. There was an even larger variety of the shadows than before, now there were different species. The shadows had ears, tails, pincers and other appendages the like of which Ray had never seen before. Who are they...?

Then there was a sudden stillness and the shadows slowly faded away whilst a larger shadow manifested above the campfire, a giant of a man with two battle hammers. Ray felt a great power radiate from it, a power...similar to Galathors, it seemed to be observing Ray curiously by the gestures the creature did with it's fingers. 

It continued this way until it was time for the second watch, the shadow nodded in acceptance and faded back into the darkness leaving Ray many more questions to be answered. Were those shadows the same as the ones before, were they servants to Galathor to keep watch on him, only time would tell but for now...his dreams beckon.